The Butterfly Effect
by Hel-Lokisdotter
Summary: Changes ripple outwards from any action. A butterfly flaps its wings; a hurricane begins. A strange boy from another world saves Boromir's life; the storm that begins could destroy Arda forever. Tenth Walker, gen, character death. ON INDEFINITE HIATUS.
1. Stranger In A Strange Land

**Disclaimer: **Lord of the Rings is not mine. It, and all characters affiliated with it, belong to the estate of JRR Tolkien.

**A/N: **Oh god, I swore I'd never do this. I promised myself I'd never write a fricking Tenth Walker fic.  
I hate myself sometimes. ¬.¬  
Well, anyway. I _hope_ it isn't a Suefic. If it is, feel free to whup me upside the head until I cease and desist, because I have no wish to write that sort of thing. I would much rather be an elitist snob with a superiority complex... well, not really, but that seems to be what I'm turning into, so I may as well not fight it. ^.-  
Beta'd by greeneyespurple over on LJ. Thanks!  
And, as always, concrit is welcomed. Even more so than usual, in fact, because I am _so_ nervous about posting this. XD I don't want to post anything that's not my best, kennit? Feel free to flagellate me to within an inch of my life.

**1**

The Fellowship had broken. Aragorn had felt it like some physical sundering, and a cold dread had fallen shroud-like upon his heart. They had fled hither and thither, calling _Frodo! Frodo!_, and when he cried out after them, he knew they did not listen.

Now the lean Ranger sprinted up the slopes of Amon Hen, and was running still when, eyes fixed on the ground and blood rushing in his ears, he collided with the stranger.

The stranger was also running, as though all the hordes of the Enemy were on his tail. His deepset grey-blue eyes widened as he fell in a tangle of gangly legs and wasted arms, bringing the heavy body of the Ranger down on top of him and crushing the breath out of both of them. Aragorn's first thought was of a rabbit in a snare; the boy had the same look of wild terror in his eyes, his mouth open and his face red from running.

There was no time to think on it. No time to waste. Hauling himself free, Aragorn dragged the boy to his feet.

"Why do you flee?" he asked, a new fear growing now in the back of his mind; the fear of attack, which since Frodo's disappearance had been driven from his mind. But the boy only swallowed, complete incomprehension showing in every line of his face. Deaf or mute - or both - Aragorn decided, and was just about to move on when the stranger suddenly spoke.

If it could be called speaking. It was no tongue that the Ranger, well-travelled though he was, had spoken or heard; harsh and grating to his ears, it was no more than a garbled run of sounds. But obviously it had meaning, for Aragorn saw his own frustration reflected in the boy's shadowed eyes.

Giving up – no time, no time! - Aragorn let go of the boy's shoulders, almost flinging the stranger away from him, and turned back up the hill, crying _Frodo! Frodo!_ at the empty skies.

Behind him, unseen, the strange boy's eyes widened, and he stopped dead in his headlong dash. Thoughts buzzed through his mind.

A split second later, the boy turned up the hill and ran after the tall, dark-haired Ranger, yelling in that strange tongue. Aragorn might not have understood the words, but the meaning was clear, the desperation undeniable; _wait!_

Slowing, he turned to face the wild-eyed boy, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword.

"I am in haste! What will you with me?" he demanded, before remembering belatedly that the boy could not understand him.

A bony hand, red with sunburn under a growing tan, tapped him on the chest, and he looked up from it to the boy's face just as the stranger, haltingly and uncertainly, but recognisably, said questioningly, "Aragorn?"

Shock struck him like a bolt of lightning, and Anduril was halfway from its sheath before he realised it. Resheathing the blade, but not removing his hand from the hilt, he grabbed the boy's shoulder in a grasp like iron, and regretted it instantly; it felt like grasping a skeleton wrapped in thin hide. The boy winced visibly, and Aragorn frowned.

"How did you know that name?" he asked slowly, putting his head questioningly on one side in hopes of being understood.

But the strange boy did not answer, not in Westron, not even in his own strange, garbled tongue. Instead, he pointed to the ground. "Amon Hen?"

The pronunciation was strange, but the name was recognisable. Mystified, Aragorn could only nod.

The boy's eyes widened, and for a second, he looked shocked enough to faint. Without even thinking, Aragorn moved to catch him, but the boy had already regained his composure – what there was of it. Wonder and terror seemed to flit like twin phantoms behind features sharpened by hunger. Murmuring to himself in that strange tongue, he turned, Aragorn's hand still heavy on his shoulder, and looked over the woods below.

Then he turned, and in the same strange accent as he had used before, he said hesitantly, "Boromir."

"Boromir?" Aragorn's frown deepened, and dread filled him at the look in the boy's eyes. "What of Boromir?"

By way of reply, the stranger tugged at the arm holding him, pointing down at the forest and saying, almost shouting, something urgent in his strange, otherworldly tongue.

Still deeper Aragorn's frown furrowed, and now he wondered if this might not be some trick of the Enemy, to distract him and to keep him from his goal.

"Boromir!" the boy repeated insistently, and made a motion as though something had struck him in the chest. He frowned for a moment, as though considering his next move, then pointed back down the hill, mimicked an archer pulling back a bowstring, and turned back to Aragorn. "Orcs!"

Aragorn's eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and he released the boy sharply. "Alas," he murmured to himself, "an ill star shines on this day, indeed. First Frodo, now this! And where is Sam?" Out loud, he said slowly and clearly, "Can you show me? Boromir – Orcs – can you show me those?"

The boy frowned, still regaining his balance from being so suddenly free, then shook his head and shrugged, tapping the side of his head with a fingertip. Jabbing a thumb at his own chest, he pointed behind him, in the opposite direction, and shook his head sharply, all the time jabbering away in whatever strange dialect it was he spoke.

Aragorn understood. The boy had come from that direction, and Boromir was not there. But where he _was_, neither of them knew.

All the more reason to move quickly.

Anduril leapt into his hand like a cold flame, and the strange boy stumbled back, shocked by the suddenness and smoothness of the motion. Aragorn no longer paid him any mind; leaping forwards, he lunged down the mossy stone of the hillside, long legs brushing aside grass and nettles. Behind him, he could hear the stranger, gasping for breath, clumsy feet thudding flat against the hard rock of the hillside. The sounds faded, little by little, as he entered the woods, casting around for signs of Boromir, but in the back of his mind, he was well aware that the strange boy was still following him.

It was a few minutes later, as he leapt over a fallen bough and cut away the branches blocking his path – an ignoble use, he thought dimly, for a noble weapon – that the deep, rich sound of a horn filled the woods.

"The horn of Gondor!" he gasped, turning towards the source of the bittersweet, echoing note. "Then it is truth, indeed! This day was mistempered from its dawning, and now..." _And now, the Fellowship is truly sundered_. The thought was bitter in his mind, and he thrust it away, concentrating on the sounds of the forest and half-praying for another note of that terrible horn.

He was not kept long waiting. It was but a few heartbeats later that the note came again, resonant and desperate. Aragorn's feet thudded in time with the blood that pounded in his ears as he pushed himself faster, faster, towards that fading echo. Another sound, too, came soon to his ears; the roars and cries and heavy, solid thuds of a battle. He was close now. Very close. The clash of steel rang in his ears, and his own sword seemed to shine bright in reply.

At last, as the horn rang out a third time, Aragorn crashed through the dense thicket around him and leapt into the clearing, Anduril as bright as starlight in his hand.

"_Elendil! Elendil!_" he yelled, his voice ringing out into the woods as clear as the horn which Boromir lifted once more to his lips.

"Aragorn!" Boromir cried in relief and joy, lowering his horn mid-blast to turn and match the blade of a snarling Orc. Already, his foes lay piled around him, ten or twenty at the least. The tall Man of Gondor was cut and bruised; the haft of a black-feathered arrow protruded from the join between shoulder and chest, and dark blood dyed the cloth of his tunic around it. Still he fought on strongly, dark hair flying and grey eyes blazing.

A little way away, Merry and Pippin lay, dead or unconscious, bound with harsh ropes on the ploughed and muddy earth of the battlefield. Orcs swarmed hither and thither like flies on a bloated corpse, with bows and swords and rough flails, filling the clearing and the woods around it. Diving for the Orc who knelt over Merry with rope in hand, Aragorn struck off his head in a single blow, turning to bring his sword up against another. But the strength of numbers was against them, and the two Men were driven further and further apart, fighting for their lives above all else. Out of the corner of his eye, Aragorn saw another Orc bend over the hobbits, and, driving his foe through with a desperate stroke, lunged forwards to bury Anduril in its throat. He stood over the small, sprawled forms of the hobbits, the reforged Sword of Elendil flashing to and fro as he drove the Orcs back, standing at bay like a cornered bear.

Boromir had been driven back against a tree, his breathing heavy as he slashed and struck. Anger blazed in his eyes, and the full strength of his arms was in every blow he drove home, but the exertion was taking his toll; he was tiring.

Once again, the sweet, rich note wavering, Boromir put his horn to his lips and blew.

The note filled the woods and echoed off the hills, setting a flock of birds to flight from the high seat of Amon Hen.

A little way away, an Orcish archer drew back the string of his bow, narrowing one eye as he aimed.

And the stranger barrelled out of the woods at a dead run, feet pounding and breath coming in short, ragged gasps.

Diving through a momentary gap in the seething hordes, he lunged at Boromir just as the arrow flew. For a moment, he seemed to hang in midair, as he took a deep rasping breath, and the roar and crash of battle seemed to fade.

Then real time came flooding back, and gravity with it, bearing the boy down harshly as he reached the tall warrior, who was thrown off balance by the suddenness of it. Pain exploded in the back of the boy's mind as, leaping shoulder-first into Boromir's stomach, he crashed face-first into the stench of long-dead leaves and freshly-dead Orcs. The arrow thudded dully into the top of his arm, sending tendrils of numbing, burning pain into him as Boromir rolled him aside. The look on both their faces was one of profound disbelief.

Boromir was on his feet in an instant, unable, though not unwilling, to spare a glance for the stranger who had saved his life. The enemy pressed in upon them still, numbers difficult to judge in the shifting shadows of the woods. The stink of piss and blood lay heavy on the air, close and stifling, and no wind came to blow it away.

Seconds stretched into minutes, or hours, or days – lost in the deadly mindlessness of battle, neither of the men could know time with any certainty; as for the strange boy, pain and shock had mercifully overcome him, and he lay in a dead faint at Boromir's feet – and the Orcish ranks, slowly but surely, began to thin. But there were still too many, too many, pressing in in a great, claustrophobic mass around the two warriors. Boromir was beginning to falter, and blood darkened Aragorn's tunic in what seemed to be a thousand places, when Gimli's axe embedded itself between the Orcish archer's shoulderblades, and he and Legolas leapt into the fray.

Amid the crash and clash of steel, time once again lost meaning, stretching into nothing but arrhythmic motion and the warmth of blood. They fought in silence, no energy left for cries and roars, and the only sound remaining was the steady huff of breathing and the dull, wet thud of steel on flesh. Then, at last, an eternity later, the Orcs broke ranks, fleeing like a pack of wolves into the golden light of late afternoon.

As soon as they had gone, Boromir fell to his knees, looking dazedly at the Orcish sword he carried in lieu of his own, which lay broken at his feet. His face pale and drawn, he closed his hand around the arrow still lodged in his shoulder, took a deep breath, and tugged.

The arrow would not budge.

"Don't," Aragorn told him sharply, as the Gondorian put his hand to the arrow again.

Boromir nodded, jaw tight with pain, and forced himself back to his feet. Gimli, who was already kneeling by the hobbits and working at the ropes that bound them, looked back over his shoulder with a frown.

"Who lies there?" he asked, nodding to the strange boy.

"I know not," Boromir admitted, squatting beside the fragile-looking figure and turning him over. "But this much I know; that I owe him my life."

Aragorn and Legolas frowned, looking over. Now, with the panic and the pain evaporating like dew, they could see the stranger clearly.

He was young, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, but the hungry shadows darkening his white face made him look even younger. Under his unbelted tunic – through the thick, cloying dirt of travel, it was a bright blue, made of some fine-spun material like, and yet unlike, the fabrics that the Fellowship wore – his ribs showed clearly, and his long, gangly limbs were bony and thin. His light brown hair hung in clumps to his shoulders, like rotten straw, and his deepset eyes were closed. Rags of shoes – as light as Legolas', and made from what seemed to be black canvas – were knotted to his feet.

"A traveller," Aragorn summarised, eventually, and turned to Pippin and Merry as they began to stir.

"One who has come many leagues," Legolas noted, frowning, "and with few supplies."

"We should treat his wound," Boromir put in, picking the boy up – he felt as light as a feather in the arms of the doughty Man – and turning back towards the river with an expression that dared anyone to challenge him. Nodding as he helped Merry and Pippin up, Gimli followed, Legolas at his side, each supporting one of the hobbits.

Momentarily alone, Aragorn bent and picked up the hilt of Boromir's broken sword, turning it over and over in his hands. That same dread clung to him.

_The Fellowship is sundered_, he thought, kneeling to gather the pieces of the shattered blade. A black-fletched arrow, buried deep in the loam, brushed the side of his hand, and he found himself shivering.

_The Fellowship is sundered. And this child, this strange, otherworldly child, is the blow that has sent it past repair._


	2. And So We Learn

**A/N:** Well, nobody killed me for the first chapter, so I guess I should be grateful. 8D  
Thanks to Clodia, who's amazingly helpful with concrit (---TTLY A SUBTLE HINT CONCRIT LOLOL! I AM TTLY SUBTLE!), and also greeneyespurple on LJ, who has the 'enviable' task of trawling through my work before it's beta'd. ILU, guyz! (Okay, I think this is the point where I take a deep breath and step away from the netspeak, isn't it? Mea culpa)  
Enjoy!

**ETA:** Okay, so the unrealistic timeframe in the latter half of this chapter's been bugging me like _woah_, so I finally got around to revamping it. Hopefully, it's an improvement - and I have five weeks (well, three weeks) of totally free time now (finished my exams!) so I'm going for a big fanfiction-type push, and I'll try to have Chapter 4 up by next week.  
However, I haven't touched Chapter 3, so there may be a few inconsistencies there, especially since I decided to take the major exposition out of this chapter. If there are, bash me with a stick until I repent, kthnxbai.  
Oh, yeah, and the edited bit? Totally unbeta'd, for now at least. '~'

**2**

The boy woke the next morning from dark dreams, shrinking back from the watery daylight. Pain gouged red lines up and down his arm, and for a moment, he could only lie there, breathing ragged and face pale. He had never before been so fundamentally and absolutely hurt, and it shocked him as much now as it had when the arrow had first lodged itself there.

Dawn was filling the sky, and it was clear that most of the men around him had been up for some time. They huddled around the fire like conspirators, although they all knew perfectly well that he barely understood one word in a hundred, and their voices were forceful, though hushed.

Boromir glanced back at him, and the stranger dropped his head back onto the pack that somebody had placed under it, closing his eyes. He wasn't sure whether it was to ward off suspicion, or because of the profound exhaustion that still clung to him like cobwebs, but either way, he was asleep again in seconds, despite the numbly throbbing pain in his arm.

"Hmph," Boromir grunted, frowning. Legolas had worked the arrow free from his shoulder earlier that morning, but as he sat with the others, he still held a wad of cloth against it, stained black with cloying blood.

"He seems harmless enough," Gimli ventured, after a moment.

"What seems and what is can be two very different things, Gimli," Legolas replied doubtfully, casting a glance back at the boy. "I would ill trust my back to him, a stranger in a land so long forsaken. And his manner of dress is strange, his ways stranger. How came he here?"

"And even if he _is_ harmless," Aragorn agreed, "he is no traveller, that much is clear enough. Haste now is needed, if we are to aid the Ringbearer still. Another with the Company will serve but to slow us."

"You could as well say that the Halflings will slow us!" Boromir said hotly, glancing at Merry and Pippin, who lay slackly on the leaf-covered ground, with their cloaks folded under their heads. "For good or ill, he saved our lives yesterday, mine and the Halflings' both. As you say, he is no traveller. Look at him! He is an inch short of starvation, blistered with exposure, so near – so _near_ – to death!" He tightened his jaw, grey eyes as hard as iron. "If we leave him, we may as well have killed him ourselves, for in any event, it comes to the same."

"And if we take him," Legolas retorted, "we may as well condemn the Ringbearer to perish instead, and to what gain? Would you trade all that we have fought for, that this child may travel with us – and, for all we know, may slit our throats as we sleep?"

"I would indeed," Boromir said firmly, in a tone that suggested he would brook no argument. "He saved my life. That is a debt I am loath to cast aside so lightly."

"We shall have to wait a while ere the hobbits are in any fit state for travel," Gimli pointed out. "Why should we not wait a while longer, since we will find it no more difficult to close our lead on the Ringbearer from two days than from one?"

"My heart calls against following the hobbits," Boromir confessed, suddenly downcast. "Or, at least, following that which Frodo carries with him."

Aragorn looked up sharply, frowning. "What mean you by that, Boromir?"

The man of Gondor bowed his head slightly, shamefaced. "I tried to take the Ring from Frodo. A madness came over me, and I scarce knew what I said or did. He fled from me, and that was the last I saw of him. The last any of us saw of him."

Silence fell, solid and impassable as lead.

"You fool," Aragorn said quietly, after a long moment. "You accursed fool."

"I knew not what I did," Boromir repeated, a little desperately. "And yet – no! No, that is not reason enough."

"Yet, mayhap, it is reason enough not to follow the hobbits," Legolas said softly. "We do not know how strong the Ring may grow, Aragorn. Nor who may next succumb to its call. I fear that here, above all other places, we must place our trust in its bearer. He is safer alone."

"No, not alone," Gimli put in. "Sam was with him. And I do not doubt that there is no more steadfast companionship that he could have."

"And yet, the Nine were brought together to aid him," Aragorn mused, staring into the flickering flames.

"But we are no longer the Nine," Gimli countered. "Nor have we been, since Gandalf fell. We are six now. Seven, if, as Boromir suggests, the boy comes with us. Perhaps it is no longer for us to aid the Ringbearer in the way that was intended."

"And perhaps there are ways we can aid him from afar," Boromir suggested, still gazing thoughtfully at the ground at his feet. "I know only this; that I am loath to bring myself so close to such temptation again. That I am loath to so place the Fellowship and the Ringbearer in danger."

"Then where?" Gimli asked bluntly. "We cannot return home now."

"Perhaps you cannot," Boromir said, lifting the cloth briefly away from his wounded shoulder, "but_ I_ can. And I intend to, with or without your company on that road – but the boy goes with me."

"Both ways lie south from here, with the Anduin," Legolas pointed out. "Must we so soon decide which we shall take? Let us rather attend to matters of greater urgency, and to these decisions when they arise."

Aragorn nodded, after a moment's hesitation. "Very well. We will wait until the hobbits are in a state to travel – and you and I as well, Boromir. Legolas is right - we will not get far, injured and exhausted as we are."

Boromir nodded, glancing at Gimli, who only shrugged.

"But if you will take responsibility for the boy," Aragorn went on, "then I charge you with teaching him what you can of our tongue, in such time as we have. I would know a little more about him – as, I am sure, would we all."

Again, Boromir nodded, his face betraying not even the slightest flicker of emotion. "I was planning on it."

***

"Tree," Boromir said patiently, pointing.

"Tray," the boy repeated slowly.

"Tree."

"Tea."

"Tree."

"How goes it, Boromir?" Gimli asked gruffly from the shade of a spreading oak, smirking.

The tall Man rolled his eyes. "Tree."

"Tree?"

Nodding, Boromir grinned at the boy, whose face lit up, then looked over at Gimli, all good humour vanishing from his face. "It goes slowly, Gimli. Very slowly indeed, as I am certain you can see. Me," he went on, turning back to the boy and pointing to himself. "I am Boromir."

"Ee arm Boromir."

With an effort, Boromir restrained himself from swearing. "No," he said firmly. "I. Am. Boromir."

"I am Boromir?"

Boromir laughed, shaking his head. "No, _I_ am Boromir. You are…"

But the boy only blinked, looking thoroughly confused.

"I am so glad not to have had you for my teacher," Legolas commented dryly, appearing soundlessly from the shadows of the trees and kneeling next to Boromir. "Listen, boy. I am Legolas. He is Boromir. That is Gimli."

"Legolas?" the boy repeated, and, straightening up slightly, gave a clumsy, unpractised sort of bow. "_Ellen sila lumen ommenteelvo_!"

Legolas exchanged a glance with Aragorn, who sat on the opposite side of the clearing with a pipe in his mouth, and raised one sardonic eyebrow. "_Ellen sila lumen ommenteelvo_?" he repeated incredulously, and laughed heartily. After a split second, Aragorn joined in, his merriment seeming to lift a huge weight off his shoulders.

"I think you should avoid Elvish from now on," the elf told the strange boy solemnly, when he had finished laughing.

The strange boy flushed deeply, opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it and closed it again with an audible _snap_. After a moment, clearly wishing to redeem himself, he said, slowly and clearly. "He is Boromir. You are Legolas. That is Aragorn, that is Gimli, that is… Merry, that is Pippin."

"Hey! _I'm_ Pippin!" Pippin retorted, sitting bolt upright. Gimli cracked a grin.

"How long have you been awake, Master Took?"

Pippin shrugged, laughing. "About an hour?"

"And you couldn't help us to gather firewood?"

The hobbit considered this carefully. "No."

"That is tree," the boy said happily, pointing to one of the oaks.

Boromir smiled wearily, vindicated by the indication that his teaching didn't fall on deaf ears.

"That is a river," he told the stranger, pointing to the Anduin.

"Riffer."

"Close enough."

***

So the days passed. Over time, it became noticeable that Aragorn's scouting trips into the woods took longer and longer. Often, he would climb to the top of Amon Hen and sit in the great seat there, as though by so doing, he could lessen their difficulty. Just as often, he returned bruised and cut, with Orcish blood on his blade and a grim expression on his face.

Pippin recovered quickly, but Merry, who had taken the brunt of the blows, only woke a day later, and it was thereafter three days more before he could stand again. As for Boromir, though he would not admit it, his sword arm never truly recovered from the arrow which had stuck there, and for the rest of his days, there was a stiffness there which never quite eased.

The boy had also been deeply hit, but, after the initial shock of the hurt had left him, he treated it with a kind of distracted abandon. He let Aragorn treat it gladly, when he would, but for the most part, he was too preoccupied with learning the Common Tongue to let anything else distract him. Within a few days, he could string together words, phrases, even - on occasion – whole sentences, and even Legolas had ceased in his constant jibing of Boromir's teaching methods, which, if crude, were certainly showing themselves to be effective.

And still Boromir played for time, holding back the day of departure. As Gimli had said, there was not so much difference between one day and two, but two days stretched to three, three days to a week, a week to three, until at last, returning from one of his frequent excursions, Aragorn strode directly to the boats, snatching up his bag as he went.

"We have wasted too much time!" he told Boromir hotly, tossing what he had into one of the boats and turning to collect another bag. "The Ringbearer must be halfway to Mordor by now! We must go swiftly, and we must go now. Too long have I waited here, and my heart is heavy in me."

"Then go!" Boromir snapped, on his feet at once. "If you must go, then go! But my own heart lays heavy at the thought of following them to the very Gates, and it is no cowardice that spurs this dread in me!"

"And I say it _is_ cowardice!" Aragorn spun to face him, a fell light in his eyes. "We were set on this road many leagues hence, Boromir. I will follow it to whatever end it may bring, and the longer we linger here, the more I dread that the end will be a dark one. I tell you, we must go swiftly, and we must go now."

"My road leads me as far as Minas Tirith, and no further," Boromir shouted, taking a step towards the tall Dúnedain. "Do not speak to me of what road I am set upon!"

"Then what reason do you have not to stay?" Aragorn demanded. "Here are the boats. There, the river which leads to the White City. We are all, now, in a state to travel. What reason do you have to linger? Nay, do not answer, for I know well enough. The boy. You would stay to teach the boy, to coddle him into good health again. You would stay, because some child saved your life, and in your misguided honour, you place him above the whole of Arda."

"He would stay, because I tell him how is writ," the boy shouted suddenly, leaping to his feet beside Boromir.

For a moment, Aragorn was speechless, his incredulity mirrored in the faces of hobbits, dwarf, elf.

"What did you say?" he said disbelievingly, putting the bag he held back down carefully and narrowing his eyes at the boy.

"He would stay," the boy repeated, defiantly, "because I tell him how is writ."

The Ranger sat down heavily between the twisted roots of a tree. "You can speak?"

"He can," Boromir said, with a triumphant air, and lifted his chin. "Not without pause, perhaps, not without mistakes, but he can."

"Then tell me what has so great a bearing on our road," Aragorn pressed, resting his chin on one fist. "Why I should not make all speed after the Ringbearer?"

"Because…" The boy sighed, sinking down onto his rough pallet, and put his face in his hands. He seemed to have run out of words, out of all energy to shape them. Tears of frustration dripped from between his fingers, running down his dusty arms, and his shoulders shook. Once or twice, he raised his head, as though it held a great weight, and opened his mouth as if to speak, but all that came out was his own garbled, alien tongue. Whatever enchantment had lain on his tongue before, to give him the confidence to say those few words, it was gone now. Gone, and all he could do was stare up at them with wide, lost eyes, like an animal that sees the hunter approach.

Eventually, Boromir sighed, sinking down next to the boy, and looked up at Aragorn. "If I understand him aright," he said slowly, glancing at the boy as though for confirmation, "it is written in some… some manuscript, in his own land, what will happen to us. In it, the three of you continue overland to Rohan, and thence to Gondor, while Frodo and Sam reach Mordor alone. He seems to believe that it is vital that we – that _you_ – are there, in Gondor, when they near the ending of their quest."

"Where is this written?" Legolas demanded, not a little suspiciously.

"Where is it written that the Orcs would attack us in the woods, for him to save us?" Boromir countered. "Where is it written that I would be shot there, then, one arrow of hundreds that could have pierced me and didn't? I hardly think he is an Orc, Legolas, nor one of their foul kind; the fell light of Mordor shines not from his eyes. So how did he know? I believe it is written there, Legolas. Truly, I do."

"_The three of you_?" Aragorn repeated after a moment, looking around at the six men gathered there.

The boy looked up, glancing at Boromir, who flinched slightly and looked at the ground.

"Well?"

"It… it is not written that I live," he admitted. "That much, I understood for certain. In this… this story, this book, whatever it is, I do not live. He does not save me. I die, and the Halflings are taken, though they live." He smiled slightly, bitterly and without mirth. "Perhaps it would be a meeter ending, befitting my crime. Full well I know that the Enemy worked through me; full well I know that were it not for me, the Company might not have broken." Looking up at Aragorn, he touched his wounded shoulder, almost without realising it. "You must admit," he said, his voice cracking slightly, "it rings true."

"It rings altogether too true for comfort," Aragorn agreed, and looked back at the boy, who was still hiccuping back tears. "Is this how you were able to warn me?"

The boy nodded, swallowing. Sweat beaded on his forehead. "Riffer," he said with dreadful solemnity, pointing to the Anduin. "Riffer. Boats. You must not… _You must not_!

A dead silence fell.

At length, Gimli clapped his hands sharply together, shattering the stillness of the morning. "Well, if you can speak, lad, then there is one thing we lack, and that is a proper introduction."

The boy blinked, not understanding.

"Your name," Boromir said softly, putting his hand on the boy's thin shoulder, where it seemed gargantuan against the bone that still stood stark against the skin. "What is your name?"

"Name," the boy repeated, blinking owlishly, and then his face cleared, suffused by a slow understanding. "Name. My name."

"Aye, your name." Gimli nodded, sticking his pipe in his mouth as Aragorn sat down, his back against a tree, his eyes fixed as intently on the boy as were those of the rest of the Company. Boromir was watching with as much interest as any of them; although he had found out much about their strange companion, he had never seemed able to prise out a name, a history, anything but the garbled tale he had given Aragorn.

The boy smiled. It was slow, and gentle, and it seemed to spread across his narrow face like the light of a rising sun.

"Nicholas Walker," he said, after a moment, looking around the gathered Fellowship. "My name… my name is Nick."


	3. Thicker Than Water

**3**

"You do not trust him, do you?" Legolas observed in a hushed tone, nodding to where Nick lay, coiled in on himself and sleeping.

"I do not," Aragorn agreed, frowning. "Or rather, I do not trust whatever brought him here. The boy himself is honest enough, I deem, but the forces which brought him here, by land or sea, I doubt. Few have such power in Arda in these dark days."

"You fear that he comes from Mordor?"

"I think he may. I _fear_ far worse," Aragorn replied, and shivered. "We should not speak of this, Legolas. Not while the moon is dark."

The elf nodded. "As you wish. Do we follow his advice, then? Do we travel overland to Gondor?"

Aragorn fell silent for a long moment, then sighed deeply. "What choice do we have? Boromir will not go by river, and Gimli seems to agree with him, the hobbits too. We cannot risk breaking the Company further." He sank his head into his hands, staring through his laced fingers at the flickering campfire. "I feel we are being corralled, Legolas, driven into some corner from which we cannot escape. Ever since the boy appeared, this feeling has hung over me – darkness. Darkness inescapable."

Legolas nodded understanding. "I too feel it in the air," he said, his voice low and worried. "Cloying and thick. But we must not lose hope, Estel."

Aragorn looked up sharply at the use of the name Elrond had given him, then sighed. "Hope…" he murmured. "I fear I left it long ago. I have lost both _estel _andEstel, and both lie far, far from here."

"There is hope still," Legolas told him, looking up at the stars. "As long as the Ringbearer lives, as long as the darkness can be held back, there is hope still."

Aragorn nodded reluctantly, drawing his lips tightly together. "There may be hope yet," he conceded, "but with each passing day, it becomes harder to see. Harder to touch. My heart rests ill, Legolas."

"Then your body should rest better," the elf replied, a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. "You are not invulnerable, heir of Isildur. You are but a man, and men must sleep. I will stand guard."

Again, the Ranger nodded. But, though he lay down (hand resting ever on the hilt of Anduril) and closed his eyes, he remained sleepless, still and silent, until dawn's light tinged the horizon grey, and only the brighter stars remained in the heavens.

It was then that, at last, sleep claimed him, and he relaxed into the embrace of oblivion, however brief.

And brief it was, for it seemed mere moments later that a great shout woke him.

"_Yrch! Yrch!_" Legolas cried, loosing another arrow into the shadows. Aragorn was awake at once, his blade leaping into his hand. Around him, their makeshift camp was in upsurge; Merry and Pippin stood back to back, knives in hand, Gimli had taken up position by the boats and hefted his axe as though he would happily have fought the entire forces of Mordor for waking him at such an unholy hour (the sun was not yet up, and he too had slept late), and Boromir had thrust a knife into Nick's hands and leapt away to the edge of the camp, ready to stand and fight whatever might come out of the shadows. The boy looked lost, terrified, and very young, clutching the long hunting knife as though it were his anchor to life. Aragorn felt a momentary stab of pity as he pushed past him, dropping into a low guard at the other edge of the little camp to Boromir.

There was a moment of perfect stillness.

Then they came.

All at once, Aragorn understood why he had seen so few Orcs lurking in the woods. There were hundreds here, far more than had been at the battle which had almost seen Boromir's death. Reinforcements! Now, more than ever, he cursed himself for not having pressed onwards, for not having made Boromir see the need to move on.

It was hardly a great army, but against six wanderers and an untrained boy, it might as well have been a million. Tightening his jaw, Aragorn took a deep, slow breath and lunged forwards, Anduril flashing like a star in his hand. "_Elendil! Elendil!_" he cried.

"For Gondor!" Boromir shouted behind him, his sword crashing again and again through the ranks of the Orcs.

Exchanging glances, Merry and Pippin gritted their teeth and leapt into the fray. "The Shire!" Pippin yelled, and struck out again and again, his short sword looking like a toy beside the wicked blades of the Orcs. Beside him, Merry tightened his jaw, still stumbling under the pain of the last battle, and put all his effort into keeping himself upright under the weight of blows.

Nick, who was still standing in the middle of the camp with Boromir's knife hefted in both hands, said nothing. He looked thoroughly sick.

"We cannot fight so many!" Gimli grunted out at length. He had forced himself to stay by the boats as the battle raged, knowing they must be guarded, but despite his relatively secluded position, he had been fighting hard. Several Orcish dead lay at his feet, and he was cut and bleeding.

"He speaks the truth," Legolas gasped, groping for the last few arrows in his quiver. He had backed into the river, and stood knee-deep in the fast-flowing water. "We cannot hold out here forever!"

Aragorn was silent for a moment. Steel clashed on steel in a ghastly cacophany.

He made a decision.

"The boats!" he shouted back, taking several steps back towards the river. "We cannot outrun them, but perhaps the Anduin can. To the boats! Boromir, with me – we'll hold them as long as we can!"

Nodding shortly, the tall Man of Gondor leapt to the Ranger's side, an Orcish sword hefted in his fist. Behind them, Gimli struck the ropes which anchored the boats, his axe severing them on the third or fourth blow.

"The ropes of Lorien are strong indeed," he marvelled, pushing himself into the stern of the boat and standing there with axe in hand as Legolas hauled a reluctant Nick into the river. "But not so strong as a Dwarven axe!"

"Nor, indeed, a Dwarven tongue," the elf remarked, casting his empty bow and quiver into the boat and vaulting in after them. With Gimli's help, he managed to pull Nick into the elven vessel, amid splashing almost as loud as the crash of blades from shore.

Behind them came Merry, half-wading and half-swimming, as black-fletched arrows peppered the water around him; he had his cousin's arm held firmly, and was pulling Pippin towards the boat. An arrow struck him in the side, and stayed there; he staggered, floundering for a moment as the water reddened around him, and struggled on. Around them, the Emyn Muil rose, great grey hills that seemed to leech the dull morning light from the air.

Nick caught Pippin's flailing hand as the hobbits were swept to the boats; he had long since abandoned the knife Boromir had given him. It lay now in the bottom of the boat, and, as they hauled Merry and Pippin aboard, Nick felt his heart sinking. He watched the blood seep down the Anduin's clear waters until, at last, the river swept them around a bend and Boromir, Aragorn, and the Orcs were all lost to view.

"We must tether ourselves!" Legolas shouted urgently, as the roar of the falls reached them. "Rauros is a cruel master!"

"What of the Orcs?" Pippin demanded, still spluttering water.

"We will run ashore on the opposite bank, and pray they have stationed no guards there!" the Elf called back, as the roar became louder. "But we must row, and row quickly!"

Even Nick bent to the oars as best he could, hauling the boat around in a wide curve. It ground to a halt on a narrow spit of stone, balancing there, a good twenty feet from the bank.

Safe. But it would not be safe for long.

"Are you hurt?" Gimli asked gruffly of the Company in general. Of them all, he had been, perhaps, the lightest wounded; his shoulder was gashed, and blood was soaking through his leggings, but otherwise, he seemed almost unharmed. Nick had been worst struck, unable to fight, and as Merry remarked to Pippin in an undertone, it was a miracle that he had survived at all. As it was, he seemed pale and dizzy, blood standing bright on white skin in a thousand places, and he swayed slightly where he sat, drained and exhausted.

But they did not attend to their wounds at once. Instead, they sat and waited, waited for a boat they might never see again; that carrying the two Men.

At last, to their wonder and relief, their waiting ended. From around the narrow point of the river's bend came the prow of the elven boat. Breath caught in every throat, the tattered remains of the Grey Company watched with hope and dread fighting for precedence in their hearts.

Dread surfaced most strongly, as the vessel came entirely into view. There sat Boromir, lolling and bloodied, yet alive. But where was Aragorn?

More by luck than judgement, the Steward's son managed to coax the boat against a rock near that on which the first boat rested. His breath was hoarse, ragged, and there was a tightness to his jaw that suggested that he would not welcome comment.

From here, craning their necks to see, they could see the boat fully.

Aragorn lay there, his face pale, his breathing harsh and bubbling in his throat. Blood dribbled from his nostril, seeping like tears from his stern eyes. An arrow was buried in his heaving chest, a knife in his heart.

Boromir looked up, and in his grey eyes was a stark terror.

"He has not long to live," he said quietly, reverentially, and pushed the hair away from Aragorn's bloody forehead. "Long enough, though, that I could not leave him to the mercies of the people of Sauron. They will expect us to continue over or past Rauros, I should guess. If we stay here…"

"No." The word was barely more than a whisper, but every one of the Company heard it, even over the roar of the falls. Aragorn forced his eyes open. "Rohan. Go to Rohan. Haste… is needed." He broke off, every breath an effort, and summoned what strength he could to say, "Théoden King… must help. Rohan."

Blood bubbled past his lips as he spoke. Nick watched it with a horrified fascination, as the full extent of what he had done struck him squarely in the heart, like a physical blow.

"Boromir…" Aragorn's voice was fading almost to inaudibility; they had to crane to hear it at all. "I am… I am sorry. Minas Tirith… I swore… swore I would go there." He managed a parody of a smile, lips red and glistening with blood. "I would have liked… to see the White City. I would…"

He fell silent, touching Anduril, which lay at his side. After a moment, the bubbling sounds of his breathing ceased.

Boromir bowed his head, taking a deep, shuddering breath, and brushed his trembling hand over the Númenorean's still face, closing the Ranger's dead eyes.

At length, he looked up.

"So passes the Heir of Isildur," he murmured, his hand, slick with Aragorn's blood, clenching and unclenching at his side, "and the rightful King of Gondor."


	4. A Time For Tears

**A/N: **Finally! I _finally_ got past my block on this chapter! :D  
More depressing, angsty stuff, I'm afraid. Welcome to the wonderful world of the teenage fic author (who appears to have picked up a bit of a thing for torturing Boromir).  
Concrit, as always, is love. This chapter's not beta'd yet, but it's in the works.  
Oh, yeah, and I forgot to mention. From hereon out, there may be a few things that are a bit weird, that might not quite fit in with the story as you've read it so far. That's mainly because I made some fairly massive edits to Chapter 2, which you might not have noticed. That's the only reason.

**4**

Stunned silence hung in a pall over the Grey Company as they stared into the boat, at the cooling meat that, not a moment ago, had been a living, breathing man.

Nick had paled, his skin almost grey under his shallow tan. Boromir's jaw was tight, but tears still escaped his proud grey eyes. Legolas' head was bowed, as was Gimli's. The hobbits seemed unable to do anything but stare, disbelieving, at the bloodied corpse.

It could not be.

It hung in the air, as certainly as if it had been spoken.

It could not be.

Their leader… their companion… their protector. Their friend. He had seemed somehow eternal, the Númenorean blood that flowed in his veins lending him an air of immutability. Somehow, to whatever level, they had all believed that he would live forever. Even Legolas, who had seen so many years long before the Númenorean's birth, had somehow expected him to live.

And yet he had not. And yet he had been the second to fall.

Tears swelling in his eyes and flooding down his pale cheeks, Nick turned away first, his hand over his mouth, and vomited copiously into the river. Silent and dry-eyed, Gimli reached across, putting one hand gently on the boy's shaking shoulders.

"_Nor lost iâ, nuin orod, dan rana law padamar_," Legolas said, without looking up. "He who was first among us is fallen. His road took him over mountains and through the deepest shadowed ways, yet never led him home. We must carry his light with us as we travel, in our hearts, lest the same fate now befalls us." He looked up then, his eyes fixed on the dead man in the boat, and reached over to lift Anduril onto Aragorn's chest. "_Novaer, mellon_. Farewell, friend. May the river take you home, where your legs could not." Kissing his fingertips, he touched them lightly to his friend's brow, already beginning to take on the featureless, characterless pallor of death.

"He was a poet," Merry said hoarsely, after a moment. "A poet, and a soldier, and the King come again. I'm not much for fancy speeches, but this I'll say, clear as you like; I've never seen his like before, and I don't think I shall again."

"I would have gone with him to the end of our road," Boromir said, his voice choked with unshed tears. "Together we should have stood at the walls of the White City. His kingdom. His home." Closing his eyes, he swallowed, hard, and stood up. The boat rocked, looking for a moment as though it would pitch him into the white-flecked river, but he regained his balance quickly, stepping onto the hard spit of rock. The water thundered around his ankles. "Now Rauros must take him there, and alone. An ill dawn shone on this day. It should have been I who fell!" A little colour returning to his cheeks, he reached into the boat, pulling out his pack and Aragorn's, and passed them both to Legolas, who took them solemnly. Then, sighing, Boromir bent to cup water in his hands, washing the worst of the blood off Aragorn's still, dead face. The rest of the Company watched steadily, unable to tear their eyes away, as he set the body neatly at the bottom of the boat, arms crossed over his chest and the Elfstone which Galadriel had given him set neatly upon his breast. With the blood gone, the dead man looked almost serene, as though he was satisfied with his work.

"May we meet again some day, Elessar of the line of Númenor," Boromir said softly, leaning over to kiss Aragorn's cold brow. "Isildur's death should not have been thine, for all that his blood ran in thy veins. Rest now, friend. It is my transgression, not thine, which leads us thence down so dark a path."

Smiling thinly, though tears were still trailing down his weathered cheeks, he fell to one knee beside the boat, as a man before his king, and bowed his head in silence for the briefest of moments, then stood and pushed the boat, with its tragic cargo, away from the spit of rock.

Every eye was drawn inexorably to the silver-grey boat, as it hung for a moment on the edge of the waterfall, then suddenly vanished from view.

"Fly, you fools," Pippin whispered, putting his hand over his eyes. His eyes sparkling with tears, Merry put a comforting arm around his younger cousin's shoulders, and they both bowed their heads. A shadow seemed to have passed over them all.

"Haste now is needed," Boromir said suddenly, straightening up. "We cannot hope to have diverted the Orcs for long. We must take what we can – _all_ that we can – and swim for the shore. Rope. We must have rope."

Legolas nodded briefly, plucking a coil of rope from the bottom of the boat.

"If we tie ourselves together, with luck, we shall all be able to cross," Boromir said, holding his hand out for the rope. But Legolas did not give it to him.

"We could," he said cautiously, regarding the distance to the bank a little dubiously. "Or we could all be dragged down by the weaker swimmers, and all crash over Rauros together."

Boromir nodded, sighing. "Then have you a better plan?" he asked, sounding defeated.

"If a strong swimmer could make it across the water alone," the Elf replied thoughtfully, gauging the distance against the length of rope he held, "perhaps he could make the rope fast against one of those trees. Then, if we could hold it against this edge, it would give those unused to swimming, or unfit, a line to hold as they crossed."

Boromir nodded. "Then I will go."

Legolas shook his head, frowning. "A doughty Man you may be, Boromir son of Denethor, but you are sore wounded, and I would ill lose you as we have lost Aragorn. I will go. I am but lightly wounded, and I swim as strongly as any Man." Already, he was wrapping the light Elvish rope around his waist, knotting it tightly. "If you will, though, wait until the last to cross, and tie the rope to the prow of the boat. With all of us at once, no doubt we have a chance of retrieving that, as well."

Taking the rope he was now offered, Boromir stepped over the remaining boat in two steps, squatting down on the other end of the rock and feeling for somewhere suitably secure to fasten his end of the rope. When he had apparently found one, he returned to the boat, the difficulty of keeping his balance becoming more and more obvious with every step he took, and sat down heavily as Legolas climbed nimbly out, the rope fixed securely to his waist, and dived off the edge of the rock, into the roiling waters.

For a moment, he was lost to view. Then, as suddenly as he had gone, he reappeared, several feet downstream. He was not struggling, and his strong, steady strokes pushed him forwards as well as anyone could hope, but the current was stronger than they had reckoned it to be, and at the rate he was going, he would soon be perilously close to the edge of the falls.

Boromir briefly considered pulling the rope back – better to be trapped for now than to lose another companion, with Aragorn's blood still cloying on his hands – but even as he thought it, Legolas' feet found solid ground, and he stood, though buffeted by the current, and waded ashore. From that, it was but a few moments to secure the rope at either end, and the others began their journey ashore.

Merry went first, and crossed with little hazard, although his face was pale and his knuckles were white from gripping the rope so tightly. After him Pippin and Gimli, too, crossed with no mishap. It was only as Boromir helped Nick towards the rope, almost lifting him, that he began to doubt, and by the time the doubt grew to fear, it was too late. The boy was out of reach, although only just, when his strength gave out, and his grip began to loosen. From then, it was a few seconds at most before his panicked scream split the air, the rope slipping out of his hand, and the water surged over his head.

Boromir glanced back at the rope, as if checking that it was secured, but he knew it didn't matter. It could have been flapping loose entirely, and still he would have had to do what he did. He was in the water almost before Legolas and Merry had even started forwards, and by the time they landed with a splash in the water, he had reached Nick's flailing form, one arm wrapped strongly around the boy's narrow chest. Gasping for air, he kicked out as hard as he could against the current, feeling his own strength drain away with every move he made. Around them, the foaming water was threaded with the pink of their blood, and Nick went on thrashing in his grasp like a fish out of water, screaming with every breath he took, until Boromir half-wished to let him go, let him drown.

Just as Boromir felt about to give in altogether, sure that he was making no progress, sure that they were both about to perish in the cold, swirling waters beneath Rauros, Nick's hand snagged the rope, more by chance than judgement. Seizing the opportunity, Boromir snatched upwards, clinging onto the rope for dear life with one hand, while he clung onto Nick with the other. His breath came in short, ragged gasps, and he felt certain that his own strength would give out before they could reach even the relative safety of the rocks. Nonetheless, he persisted, willing himself to reach just a little further, keeping himself afloat somehow as he dragged himself, one-armed, along the smooth rope. Every muscle in his body screamed at him, his wounded shoulder sending streams of fire through his blood so that he had to grit his teeth to keep from screaming. His dark hair hung bedraggled over his face, half-blinding him, but he could not move to brush it away. All he could do was hold the suddenly still form of the boy in the crook of his arm, and pray with all his might that he would reach the boat again before his grip on either boy or rope loosened too far.

The first he knew of reaching the shelf of rock was a sudden, sharp pain in his shin as the current swept him up against it with an almost human malice. Malice or none, though, he knew salvation when he felt it, and he crawled onto the shallow spit of rock, hauling Nick up after him. For a moment, he simply knelt there on all fours, gasping for breath, then he stood. His legs seemed to have lost their bones and their strength together, and it was all he could do not to collapse into the flowing water that splashed around his ankles.

Pulling his hair out of his face, he leant down, head spinning, to help Nick into the boat. When that was accomplished, he staggered to the other end of the rock, where he had tied the rope, and began to fumble at the knot, his fingers numb and stiff.

Not trusting his trembling fingers, he held the end of the rope between his hands as he stumbled back to the boat, collapsing in the prow next to Nick, who looked about to vomit again. "Stupid," he muttered angrily, looking away from the boy and back at the shore, where Legolas had clambered back onto the bank and was directing the rest of the Fellowship to take the rope. Gripping his end of it between his knees, Boromir blew on his fingers to restore some feeling to them, then leant over and made the rope as fast as he could between the seats. Holding it as tightly as his wounded hands and numb fingers would allow, he signaled for Nick to do the same, then nodded, tight-jawed, to Legolas.

Hand-over-hand, from both ends of the rope, the boat was drawn slowly and unsteadily towards the shore. When at last it reached the shore, and was safely pulled aground, Boromir collapsed over the edge of it and onto the dusty ground of Amon Lhaw, then pulled himself to his feet again and frowned at the river.

"Rohan," he said dully. "We must cross the river, and to Rohan. Help me with the boat, Gimli, Legolas. If we can pass Rauros by this evening, we can rest more easily, and cross the river tomorrow." Already, he was unhitching the rope from inside the boat, coiling it neatly. He was just tucking it into his pack and starting back towards the boat when he stumbled and pitched forwards, barely catching himself against Legolas' shoulder.

The elf frowned, and shook his head.

"Patience is my counsel," he said softly, helping Boromir to his feet and holding him there. "You are sorely wounded and exhausted. We would end up carrying you, and that is hardly the best way to proceed."

Reluctantly, Boromir nodded, struggling away from the elf with a sigh. "Then we shall make camp," he agreed, tossing his pack against the roots of a nearby tree. "I…"

But what he would have said, they never knew, for it was at that moment that the darkness rose up behind his eyes, his legs gave out under his own weight, and he simply collapsed, lying there like one of the dead himself.


	5. Dawning Darkness

**A/N:** Hey, look, I actually updated! Honestly, this was the last thing I was intending to work on, too - I have too much to do already, so fandom's taken a back seat, and I'd almost forgotten that this particular fic existed. But it occurred to me that I haven't done any writing in weeks, hence this. Now, if I can just summon up the crackishness, I might actually be able to update the rest of my multichapter fics...  
Anyway, moving swiftly on before I start to ramble, here's Chapter 5 of the Butterfly Effect. NOW WITH PLOT! and no beta. Will edit when I get around to getting it beta-read and all that jazz. Concrit is love, flames are lulz, adoration is nice but unnecessary, thank you all, blahblahblah.

NOW READ ON...

**5**

The next morning, for the first time, Nick was awake before the others of the Company. Rather, he was still awake. Exhausted though he was in mind and body, sleep had not come. Would not come, he suspected, for a long time yet. Certainly not until every moment his eyes closed did not bring fresh pictures of Aragorn's face, bloodied and pallid and hideously still in death. Not until he could forget, even for a moment, that it was his fault.

He wanted to go home. More than ever before, more even than in the panicked days before he had stumbled across the Company, he wanted to go home. He was lost in a story that he didn't know any more, in a world he had no idea of how to survive in, with people who had every reason to hate him. He was exhausted, a deep exhaustion that went deep and to the bone, and wounded worse than he had ever been in his life before. And their guide in this savage land, the man he trusted more than any of them to lead them out alive, was dead.

And he, Nicholas Walker, had killed him.

He had never thought it was possible to be so miserable, or so lonely… or so guilty. It wasn't even that saving Boromir had killed Aragorn, not really. It was those days of teaching on the riverbanks, all those slow, painful lessons to let him communicate even briefly, that had killed him.

Nick had had a friend once who had learned Elvish, as a hobby. He had laughed at that then, asked what the point could be in learning a language that had never existed. Now, instead, he wished he had followed Michael's lead, and learnt Elvish. Learnt Dwarvish. Learnt _something_, anything, that could have erased those weeks of studying.

Then, he thought despairingly, Aragorn might not have died.

There was another thing, too, of course. He had never seen a man die before. He had never seen a dead man before, either, or not in reality. Aragorn could have been a total stranger, a man whose life had never touched his, and still, Nick suspected, he would have nightmares for months about the look on that face, the way the blood had bubbled from between his lips…

"All that is gold does not glitter," he whispered to himself, his pale, bruised face buried in the frayed, filthy knees of his trousers, "Not all those who wander are lost." He looked up briefly, grey-blue eyes flickering around the makeshift camp. After so many weeks struggling not to speak it, his own language fell strangely on his tongue, bitter with regret. "The old that is strong does not wither. Deep roots are not reached by the frost."

Tears were starting to track down his cheeks, leaving thin trails that stung at the myriad cuts littering his hollow cheekbones. Stumbling with exhaustion, he dragged himself to his feet. "From the ashes a fire shall be woken…" he whispered, limping towards the pack Boromir had dropped by the riverbank, and knelt to check through it, his lips still moving, "…a light from the shadows shall spring. Renewed shall be blade that was broken--"

Straightening up again, he bit his lip and stared out at the roaring, rushing falls of the Anduin, dashing his tears away with the back of his hand as he swung the pack onto his back, sweeping Boromir's travelstained old cloak around his shoulders. It swept in the mud after him - the Steward's son was almost a foot taller than him, and broader in the shoulder – but it was better than nothing.

"The crownless again shall be king," he whispered, to the grey light dawning in the east, and swallowed hard. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

He had thought to leave a message, a _don't follow me_, if nothing else. But he could barely speak Westron, let alone write it, and a message in English would be no message at all. He could only hope that the Company would understand – he suspected that Legolas, at least, would be glad to see the back of him.

The knife Boromir had given him was still lying, forgotten, in the bottom of the boat. After a moment's thought, and another furtive, hunted glance around the camp, the boy snatched it up, pushing it into the pocket of his worn trousers. He would hardly be able to hunt with it – hunting was not a skill he possessed, and he doubted it was one he would learn quickly enough – but if he were to run to woods that might already be swarming with Orcs, he intended to go armed. Of course, one boy with a stolen knife he didn't know how to use would hardly last a moment against even one Orc. Still, there was a steel to him, lost in a life in which he had never needed it, that refused to let him go down without a fight, and so he gripped the knife tightly with one hand, loath to lose it along the way, as he hobbled as quietly as possible towards the treeline again.

He had just passed into the trees, the faint light of dawn fading into darkness again as the trees blotted out the stars above, when a knife pressed against his throat, a hand closing around his shoulder. He froze at once, stopping dead in his tracks, as Legolas spoke softly into his ear.

"In future," the elf said smoothly, lifting the knife away from Nick's throat, "I would counsel silence. Where are you running to?"

Nick opened his mouth, then closed it again, sagging where he stood. He had understood perhaps half of what Legolas had said, but that was enough to know that he had failed – and enough to know that he would not be allowed to leave. "From," he managed eventually, the foreign word heavy with effort and edged by fear, and was almost impressed with himself for remembering even that much, under the circumstances.

The elf released his shoulder sharply, and Nick almost fell, turning to face Legolas with his chest heaving. The grey light of dawn was spreading to the shelter of the trees now, and through the shadows, Nick could see movement in the camp; doubtless Gimli, since the hobbits were still accustomed to sleeping later and he could hardly imagine Boromir would rise early after collapsing as he had the night before. Whoever it was, it was movement, and Legolas had clearly seen it, too; one slim hand closed around the boy's bony wrist, and the elf divested him of his knife before pulling him deeper into the shadows, out of sight of the others. After a moment, out of earshot as well as sight of the riverbank, Legolas released his wrist and motioned for him to sit.

Nick did so, grateful despite himself, for his exhausted legs were beginning to tremble under his own weight. The sun brought little warmth with it; he pulled Boromir's cloak around himself, watching the elf with hunted eyes in the dim half-light.

Legolas sat down opposite him, perched on the heavy root of some ancient tree, and met his eyes unblinkingly. Eventually, he spoke, his voice soft but clear, and slow enough that Nick might understand as much as possible.

"You cannot leave now," he began, and there was a sadness in his voice that was almost as frightening as the anger thrumming in his eyes. "Now that the Númenorean is dead, we are but six. We cannot lose another." Nick hardly had to be fluent to catch the undertone of what Legolas had said; _not even you_. The elf's dislike for him was written in every line of his face, and although Nick could hardly blame him, when all was said and done, it was an uncomfortable knowledge.

He opened his mouth to speak, but the only words that came to mind were English, and before he could even begin to attempt translating them, Legolas was speaking again.

"Boromir yet holds himself indebted to you. If you leave now, it will but break the Company further. And besides, Nicholas Walker…" The elf paused, as though he disliked the words he spoke now, but speak them he did. "The Company need you, for it may be that you alone will know what yet stands between us and the Ringbearer. Come." He stood abruptly, holding out Boromir's knife, which Nick, stumbling to his own feet, grabbed at once. "Give me the pack. I shall return it to its place, before Boromir wakes to see it gone."

After a moment of watching Legolas' face, something perilously close to defiance in his expression, Nick shrugged the heavy pack off his back, holding it out. Legolas stood there a moment, tall and fair and grim, meeting his eyes, before taking the pack and slinging it over his own shoulder. Nothing was there now in his face of that old light-heartedness with which he had left Lórien; the last of that had ebbed away with Aragorn's death, it seemed.

His eyes had not left Nick's. A shadow seemed to pass across his face, and when he spoke next, that taut anger underlying his words had gone, leaving only a deep, abiding sadness. "I am not Aragorn," he said softly, taking a step back but still holding Nick's eyes. "I am neither Ranger nor King, and it may be that I am a poor guide through such a wilderness. More and more, I wish myself again in Mirkwood, rather than as the leader of a quest that now seems doomed to end in darkness. Still, I have no choice; I must do what will best help us along our way. What will best help us is you." He turned away now, eyes downcast. "You alone know the story."

His feet, light-shod and nimble, made no sound on the leaves and twigs of the woodland floor as he moved back towards the Anduin, half-lost among the shadows of trees. He did not look back, but strode on, leaving Nick to stand there, casting his eyes downwards to his bare feet and the rotting leaves beneath them, and shake his head.

"I don't know the story," Nick mumbled in his own tongue, wiping at the tears that stung his eyes. The words had the weight of a confession to them, but none of a confession's release. "I don't. Not any more."


	6. The Flag In The Grass

**A/N:** I LIIIIIIIVE! No, but really, it took me more than a year, but I finally updated, and that makes me kind of insanely happy. Unbeta'd still (any offers are welcome and will make me love you forever and always), concrit welcome and gladly received, and, well, I hope it was worth waiting a year for. :p

**6**

It was three days later, three days of hard marching, that they found the flag of Gondor in the long grass. Nick seemed to have the worst of it, unused as he was to such travel; on the second day, he cast aside the tattered remains of his shoes at last, the blistered skin of his feet now raw and close against the earth. Yet still he trudged along, those three long days, bloody, aching, and silent, though sometimes he muttered diconsolantly in his own strange tongue. He was pale and wan, the shadows under his hollowed eyes as dark as bruises. More than once in those last two nights, he had screamed the whole camp into wakefulness, dragging them up from their beds with weapons in hand, only to find him still deeply asleep, thrashing and crying out in the grip of nightmares. Even Boromir, ever the most forgiving to the strange boy, was beginning to lose patience – though Boromir perhaps best among all of them understood Nick's pain. How could he not, when the same agonies plagued him? When his dreams, too, were haunted by the phantom of Aragorn's still, noble face, blood-smeared and waxy with the pallid cold of death? His King, his liege... his guilt to bear. At the last, he had failed, and the last King of Gondor had fallen. Boromir's guilt besieged him, and evil thoughts swarmed his mind like blowflies.

Such evil thoughts gripped him now, so that when he first espied the flag in the grass, lit clearly by the golden evening light, he thought it at first some new trick of his guilty mind, taunting him with Gondor's loss, with what he had done. He raised a hand to his eyes, hoping to drive away this new torment his conscience had devised, but even as he did, Legolas – who led their group still, in solemn funereal silence which hardly suited the merry Elf – who pointed at the flag, his smooth brow creasing slightly into a frown of perplexion.

"Is that Gondor's mark which lies there in the grass," he asked aloud, "or am I much mistaken?"

"Not mistaken," Boromir replied softly, and shook his head. "Yet what it marks, or how it came to be here, I know not." He drew closer, cautiously, as though at any moment some doom might be laid upon them by the flag's nearness. It was small, smaller than his mind had at first made it – the design itself little more than a finger's-length from top to base, though with the roots tangled in a depiction of the Throne of Gondor - and oddly-placed; nor did it seem, as they drew closer, was it a flag at all. More like...

"A book!" Merry exclaimed, surprise evident in his tone, and bent to pick it up. "Or the front of one, at any rate. Look, there's still a couple of pages fixed here..." He peeled the pages away from the cover. It had clearly lain untouched in the grass for some time; wetted by rain and dew, the pages were so firmly clogged that they all but fell apart in the hobbit's hands. The whole thing was smeared by mud and grass, and some small animal had chewed away at a corner of it.

Boromir had been aware of Nick shifting nearby, poised as he ever was to catch the boy if ever he should fall. Even so, he was taken aback by the sudden, desperate speed with which Nick lunged forwards, snatching the sodden paper from Merry's hands and hugging it protectively to his chest. His grey-blue eyes glittered with unshed tears.

"His, then?" Gimli observed wryly, then looked up, seeing the look which passed now between Boromir and Legolas, and frowned. "Nay, you cannot suppose..."

"I can," Legolas replied solemnly, speaking for both of them, "and, Master Dwarf, I _do_. Boromir, ere we waste our time in vain on some false missive, will you ask him..."

"It is." Nick's voice was far from steady, but it was clear enough to stop Legolas mid-sentence, and to draw all eyes once more to him. "What you to think... it is." He was silent a moment, lips moving, then he turned the book once again for them to see, tracing a bony finger over the unfamiliar characters drawn out along the top. "Here says it _Return of... of the King_." His voice choked briefly, but he swallowed it down, biting his lip. "The tale I said of... in the tale is it third." He held up three fingers, emphasising his point. "Last. And the..."

He broke off sharply, eyes widening; looked for a moment at the book, then slowly back up at Legolas. "The other," he said forcefully, then reconsidered what he'd said. "The _rest_. The rest we must find. The..." Again, he broke off, frustration clear in his face as he sought desperately for a word he had no way of knowing. "After the tale. The pages of... the tongues, the other writ, the names..."

"Appendices?" Boromir hazarded, glancing at Legolas, who simply shrugged.

"It matters not," he opinioned. "The boy says we need them, and the boy is what we have. Ask him if he knows where we may find the rest."

But Nick had already turned away, looking around the grassy plain, and then, with sudden recognition sparking in his eyes, set off at a shambling, painful run the way they had come. Again, Boromir and Legolas exchanged glances, and wordlessly, Boromir was elected to follow. Nick was slow, injured and weak, and Boromir had no trouble keeping close distance between them. The boy drew at last to a halt, breathing ragged and heavy, a few scant yards from the way they had travelled, where a slab of rock leaned giddily from the sharp drop of the hillside. Looking up at Boromir for a moment, he half-fell down the slope, coming to rest almost out of sight as the Steward's son followed him down, more carefully.

"Here," Nick said, holding the rock slab for support. "I _remember_ here. I _woke_ here." He looked up at Boromir, eyes all but pleading, and repeated the last, quietly but firmly. "I woke here."

"You woke..." Boromir repeated softly, and then, as the light of understanding suffused his mind, "When you came here? This is where you were brought?"

Nick nodded, the tears in his eyes finally spilling out onto his cheeks, and reached under the rock, pulling out what was stored beneath it. Still mulling over the thought that this, this desolate hillside, was how the boy had come to this land, Boromir had all but forgotten their purpose, but the contents of the little cave brought that purpose back to him. It was a knapsack, of sorts, made of some black and grey material foreign to him, engrained like the book with mud and grit, but drier, at least. The top was open, and, as Nick put the sodden book cover to one side and began rummaging through it, Boromir saw that it was mostly filled with books; paper, not parchment, and whiter than any Boromir had seen. All were written in that foreign script, and Boromir saw no more designs nor letters he recognised. As Nick searched ever more frantically through it, he wept, putting aside its contents with reverence even as he dug through it wildly, frustrated. One scarcely had to know what he was looking for to know that it went unfound; it was read in every line of his face and in his frantic, panicking movements. Boromir laid a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Calm," he advised, and reached for the knapsack, replacing its contents. Lifting it onto the rock slab, he looked down again, into the space where it had been, and, seeing nothing, stood. "Take this back to the others," he told Nick, voice level, and held out the bag. "Tell Legolas to hold where he is until I return; I go to seek the book. Understand?"

Nick wiped his eyes on his sleeve, clutching the bag to his chest, and nodded. "You go to seek, you will return, he is to stay?"

"He is to stay," Boromir agreed, helping Nick up. "Unless he can help, for his eyes may be sharper than mine and his foot lighter. But the Company must remain."

With another nod, Nick turned, still clutching the knapsack as though he feared it might disappear, and scrambled back up the steep hillside without a backwards glance, a skinny, weak figure who cast a long and weaving shadow. Boromir watched him with a sigh, for the thousandth time questioning whether the boy was worth the trouble he had brought; his hand went unsensed to his still-aching shoulder where the arrow had struck, and he shook his head, forcing the thought aside. What was done was done. They could but try to make good of it – and, if Nick was to be believed, that began with finding the book. Turning away without another thought, Boromir headed into the shadowed vale at the bottom of the hill, knowing that to find it might take a miracle, not caring. Miracles seemed to walk in the daylight these past few months, and he would no longer be shocked by them. He would seek the answer until the light faded altogether, and still by starlight if he must.

Yet a voice whispered in his ear _wasting time, wasting time_, and he feared it. How could they know to trust Nick at all? How could Nick himself know that the tale would help? What could they do with the book that they could not without? What words could be so powerful that they would prevent a tragedy like that which had befallen the King above Rauros?

He knew not, and he feared his ignorance. But he trusted the boy, and above that, he trusted his instincts – his instincts which he had so rudely crushed on the banks of the Anduin, when they had warned him to move on; his instincts which for a while he had overridden, and whose overriding had led to Aragorn's death. He would ignore them no more, and now every instinct in him thrummed to this insanity, to find the book, to aid the boy, and to at least come home with some small part of his duty now discharged.

And so he sought through the long grass as the sun sank deeper in the sky, looking for broken stems or foxholes, any hint of that white paper, praying that it would reveal itself, that he sought in the right place or anything like it. He was still searching when, as the first stars peered through the wisps of cloud and the crimson sunset began to fade, he heard hooves and the voices of Men. Turning, he saw them, shapes in the near distance, moving slowly, with relaxed ease, towards him. They must have seen him, too, for an instant later he heard the voice of their leader ring out, and the host sped to a gallop. He heard the whisper of steel carried on the wind, and yet he smiled as he straightened, for he knew that voice.

"Éomer!" he cried aloud, as the horses neared and the helmeted riders became clearer. "Éomer, Éomund's son, it gladdens my heart to see you again!"

"Boromir?" Éomer drew his horse to a halt, signalling for the others of his host to do the same, and sheathed his sword, leaping from the saddle to stand before Boromir. "Too rarely have I seen you in the Mark, son of Denethor, and I am glad to welcome you! But surely you came not alone, horseless and unguarded? Do you not know that Orcs swarm these lands like flies of late? Ill would I see you wounded in Rohan's lands, Boromir."

"I came not alone," Boromir assured him, but his smile faded. "As for Orcs, we have met with them already, and they have tasted my steel – yet it bit not deep enough, for we lost one of our number there, and I fear more besides. Ah, but such tales can wait, and I would not gladly burden you with them. Come, I should return to my own company – the hour grows late, and the light is all but gone. Will you come with me, Éomer? Ill would I bring my companions deeper into the Mark without your permission, now we are met, and my company and yours may gladly rest a night under one another's guard."

Then Éomer laughed, and the sound was fair to Boromir's ears, for he had not heard a breath of laughter since the battle beneath Amon Hen. "Guard, Boromir? We guard ourselves, we of the Mark. Yet I will gladly come, and share food and fire with your companions. No churl am I, to turn aside company, and we hunt no more... come, I shall lend you horse and bridle, and you shall lead me to your friends."


End file.
